Many businesses and/or governmental agencies have a need to authenticate identities of potential clients and/or customers to avoid providing benefits or services to perpetrators of identity-related fraud. The United States Internal Revenue Service, for example, reported that over a million tax returns were identified as fraudulent for 2011, and a significant number of these tax returns involved identity theft.
Identity fraud continues to present difficult challenges for today's financial institutions, as many lenders unknowingly open credit accounts based on applications having synthetic, stolen or manipulated identity information. Technically well-informed fraud perpetrators with sophisticated deception schemes are likely to continue targeting governmental and financial institutions, particularly if fraud detection and prevention mechanisms are not in place. Balancing the threats of identity fraud with efficient service for legitimate clients presents significant challenges for identity authentication technologies.
Privacy and security of personal or propriety records and access to databases or remote services have become more reliant on increasing strengths of authentication methods; however, the relative strength of authentication is highly dependent on correctly identifying the identity of the individual(s) to whom the authentication method has been assigned.
Traditional identification methods have relied on the use of an account number, email address or phone number without stronger processes to identify fraudulent or high risk indicators in combination with proofing or verifying the identity of the individual(s). Tightly coupling strong methods of fraud decisioning and verification with the enrollment or use of the authentication method(s) will aid in the privacy and security challenges of in-person or remote authentication.